Present means for establishing conducting paths between electronic components employ thin insulating boards with a thin layer of copper on one side or both sides. By chemical or mechanical means part of the copper is etched away, leaving conducting paths corresponding to the desired circuit. Electronic components are then placed on the board with their electrical connections soldered to the conducting paths. Once the circuit is etched onto the board it can not be changed. The circuit is fixed and can not be altered. If an error is made in the design or the etched circuit, the board can not be repaired. Another disadvantage is, etching the circuit onto the board is a process that involves a multiple number of steps involving the application of various chemicals.
An alternate method involves mounting the electronic components on a thin insulating board and making the connections individually with conducting wire. In this case the electronic components are placed into sockets having long leads or posts in which the wire is wrapped around using a wire-wrapping tool. Initial interconnections are placed close to the board with successive interconnections layered on top. Errors can be corrected, however, the more errors or changes, the more rewiring necessary. It may require searching through layers of conducting wire depending on how deep the error is located.
Another method, called breadboarding, uses a board with internal clips that establish a connection with conductors when they are inserted through an array of holes placed through one side of the board. Electronic components and conducting wire are plugged into the board without any need of special tools. Errors or design changes are made simply by removing and plugging in conducting wires. Despite no need for any tools, breadboarding suffers the same drawbacks as wire wrapping. Conducting wires have to be plugged into the board for each individual connection between electronic components. Complicated circuit designs require layering of the conducting wire, making errors hard to locate. Errors in wiring located in lower layers make it nearly impossible to correct without removing perfectly valid connections on upper layers.
All three methods presented above also suffer another drawback in that they are time consuming.